Thick skinned.

I wish I was.  I am not.  I am sensitive and my feelings get hurt rather easily. I rarely ever hold a grudge, and I try to love the other person, even if they have hurt me.  However, I never seem to be able to avoid the churning sick feeling in my stomach and the sting of tears in my eyes after someone says something hurtful.  This morning, after a rather rough night I logged into facebook.  A cousin of mine had said some very unkind things about my grandparents.  He might as well have hit me physically, because the pain I felt was far more painful.  These are people I love, I admire, and I have an incredible desire to protect.  I know that if my grandmother saw those words she would be devastated.  Part of the reason why it hurts is that I feel the raw hatred that my cousin is harboring.  He has cut of any chance of allowing the Atonement to work in his life.  So much so that the hate is spreading not only to the people who have wronged him, but to those who were innocent as well.

  This is my way of restoring balance....I'll share a little bit about the wonderful grandparents I have.  When I was little my grandpa use to take me in the Semi truck with him.  I would sit in the sleeper and color while he told me stories.  Once in a while he would ask me to watch for deer.  Every once in a while I would call out "Jumping deer, Grandpa!  Jumping deer!"  It took several miles of this before he finally figured out that the deer I was seeing was on a sign on the side of the road.  Another time, when I was a teenager, Grandma and grandpa picked us up from our home and we drove through Utah on the "Scenic route."  We stopped at every little look out and monument. we took two weeks just to explore the little known places of the state we lived in.  We spent hours just talking.  Grandpa told me that he once nearly lost his drivers licence because he had been in 20 accidents in less than a year.  When they investigated they found out that none of the accidents were actually his fault.  Grandma used to go on walks with us.  It was always under the guise of being healthy and loosing weight.  However, we always walked to the nearby grocery store, bought a doughnut and walked home licking the sticky glaze off our fingers. My grandparents moved away when I was a teen, and I missed them so much.  My grandma didn't have much money, but always on our birthday she would call us, long distance from California, before she went outside to feed the animals.  We always looked forward to that 4:30 AM wake up call to wish us happy birthday.  

I was looking for a better picture of my grandparents, when I found this gem.  It was taken in May 2000.  My Hubby had just baptized my grandpa.  I was four days away from my due date.